The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation authorized the Russian consulate in Simferopol to start issuing Russian passports to the militants of the special police force Berkut. This was reported on January 28 on the Facebook page of the Foreign Service.

RIA NEWS / Andrey Stenin

Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation promised to employ Ukrainian colleagues who would eventually become citizens of Russia. Astrakhan Oblast governor Alexander Zhilkin extended the invitation to Berkut members who want political asylum in Russia.Earlier on Friday, the State Duma introduced a bill aimed at simplifying the process of issuing Russian passports to Ukrainians. According to the bill, one does not need to live in Russia for five years, have a legal source of income, or renounce Ukrainian citizenship, as is required now. The time of considering appeals for Russian citizenship will be reduced to two months. In addition, anybody who is willing to become a citizen of Russia does not need to pay any official fees.

Article by: Mariana Budjeryn By now, it is a well-known story: in the early 1990s, Ukraine surrendered the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union in exchange for security assurances from nuclear...